


Oh, Snap!

by dansunedisco



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Cell Phones, Crushes, F/M, Humor, Modern Westeros, Pining, Social Media
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-04
Updated: 2018-10-04
Packaged: 2019-07-24 23:50:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16185740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dansunedisco/pseuds/dansunedisco
Summary: Jon breaks his phone and gets the girl -- with a whole lot more in-between.-Jon  + navigating cellphone usage, social media platforms and the joys of falling in love.





	Oh, Snap!

**Author's Note:**

> so i'm just a girl out here trying to get her writer's block to go tf away
> 
> please enjoy this not-so-serious fic about cellphone usage

Jon breaks his phone -- an old, sturdy Nokia brick he’s had for years and years -- on a Wednesday. He drops it accidentally, right into the toilet as he's brushing his teeth and tapping furiously because texting on those beasts is a skill of force, not finesse, but no matter what he does, or what he tries, the wretched thing never turns back on.

Ultimately, all he does is throw it in a junk drawer. He rarely used it anyway, keeping in contact with friends from uni and, occasionally, letting Arya and Robb know he was alive. In fact, it would’ve suited him just fine if he never used one again. Theon always gave Jon shit for his adherence to the old ways, but -- well, sometimes a landline just felt _better,_ and he forgot all about his severance from modern life with a shrug.

But, of course, the inevitable happens with Arya nearly kicking his door down three days later. “You could've told me your phone was out of commission!” she says. “I thought I was going to find your face half-eaten by Ghost when I got over here.”

“Tell you with what phone?”

She throws her hands up. “You know, most millennials would've went out the same day for a new one,” she says. “And that's what we’re going to do right now.”

“Right this second?”

Arya’s glare allows no further argument, and she manhandles him into the car with considerable strength for someone so small. She marches him right up to a clerk at the store. In that moment, Jon is helpless. Jon gets a new phone. Even upgrades his plan to unlimited data.

Arya sets him up with everything. She says, “You gotta get an IG account. Oh, and Snapchat, too! Here, I'll make one for you and add the family.” She clicks and swipes and clicks some more, and before Jon knows it he has a thing called a Bitmoji that looks vaguely like him and about three more social media accounts than he wants. He tells himself it doesn’t matter. He didn’t use any of that stuff before. _I don’t need it now._

Then, Sansa Stark snaps him. _Sansa in the North sent you a snap._ He reads the notification over and over, heart hammering because he’s just nervous to use a new social media platform and that’s _all,_ okay? He opens the app and somehow navigates to Sansa's snap -- he only has 7 friends, all of them the Starks, so it’s quite easy to do. What he gets is a close-up picture of Lady, a pastel pink bow tied primly around her collar. A heart emoji hangs over it. It’s very, very cute. Then, it disappears. He’s sure he’s done something wrong, but a quick internet search (which he can do on his _phone_ now, Seven Hells) tells him that’s exactly how it’s supposed to work. But it doesn’t tell him anything else and Jon, for the life of him, has absolutely no idea how to respond.

He broaches the subject with Sam a few days later over drinks at The Crow. “Do you have a Snapchat?”

Sam, bless him, eyes him with dubious curiosity but very little judgment. “I don’t use it very often, but yes.”

Jon takes a long gulp of his beer and explains his situation: the highly advanced phone, the unfamiliar apps, and the new, strange way people communicate with one another. Does he reach out first? Does he respond? And why does everyone communicate with memes and gifs nowadays? “It’s just, y’know, I’m shit at talking to people,” he says. “I didn’t think I needed an actual device to make it even worse.”

“You’re _not_ shit at talking to people,” Sam says. “You’re just shit at talking to a certain someone.”

“I have no idea who you’re referring to.”

“No? How strange, since you talk about her so much.”

“I’m drawing a blank.”

“Really? Name rhymes with Pansa Smark.”

He nearly chokes on his drink. He taps out. “I speak to her.”

“Grunts don’t count.”

“I use _words._ Actual words, Sam. In fact, just the other day she asked if I was coming to Robb’s birthday party next week and I said yes.”

Sam lifts his shoulders up in a tiny shrug; _you don’t need to convince me._

Jon traces the condensation on his mug; _yeah, yeah I know_. The fact of it is: It’s true, all of it. He just doesn’t feel like admitting it aloud. Not tonight, anyway. Not when Sam wasted absolutely no time in going for the jugular.

The thing is: Jon Snow has been in love with Sansa Stark for years. Everyone knows it. Even Arya has given him encouraging advice. _Arya._ Who scrunches her nose up whenever a vaguely romantic plotline reveals itself on-screen and boo’ed during Queen Alysanne’s famous love confession when Sansa made everyone watch The Good Queen last summer. He’s pretty sure even Robb has given him his blessing to go for it -- that, or he completely misunderstood Robb’s long, wandering speech about seizing what you want and taking chances.

None of it matters, of course. It doesn't matter if every single person in the north knows how Jon feels, because Sansa herself doesn't know. And with the way his life goes, she never would.

He reaches into the bowl of stale bar pretzels and pops a handful into his mouth.

“Oh, _Jon_ … not the community pretzels.”

 

-

 

He’s between wakefulness and sleep when the idea comes to him. His eyes spring open and he sits straight up in bed with a gasp, startling Ghost badly enough he skitters out of the bedroom with a disgruntled woof. “Don’t talk to her!” He nearly shouts the words.

The answer is so simple. So simple he can’t believe he didn’t think of it before. An almost-madness grips Jon as the idea takes hold. Use technology to his _advantage_. Break the ice. With pictures. He punches his pillow and flips it to the cooler side, and drifts off into blissful, restful darkness.

 

-

 

He spends way too much time deciding on what to send Sansa the next morning that he misses his usual train and has to run the half-mile from his stop to work to make it on time. In the end, all he sent was a picture of Ghost after their post-morning run sans emojis or any kind of context.

He chews on his thumbnail through his morning meeting with Mormont, his phone burning a hole in his pocket. He’s pretty sure he’s mentioned he runs before work. It’s not weird, he thinks. She sent him a snap of Lady first. He’s simply reciprocating. It's not weird: a mantra he repeats to himself.

By lunch, he’s itching to check his notifications. He’s not disappointed. Sansa replied with her own snap an hour after his: a green breakfast smoothie; _lady said she wanted to sleep in._

He’s sure he’s grinning stupidly at his phone. Something he confirms when he swaps to the front-facing camera. Before he can chicken out, he toggles to the filters (something Sam taught him, after giving Jon requisite time to mope on his own in the pretzel bowl) and chooses the puppy one. He looks _ridiculous_ , but he’s willing to gamble. _For Sansa._ He takes the snap, considers adding a caption (“but what?”) and sends it without anything but him and those dumb dog ears before he can second-guess himself. He puts the phone down; bounces his knee to get his nervous energy out.

A knock brings him out of his stunned stupor, and he looks up to see Satin leaning in at the door. “Hey boss,” he says in greeting, but his brows quickly furrow. He points at Jon. “You’re smiling.”

Jon suppresses the urge to touch his face to check. “I do that sometimes.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes I --” He sighs. “What is it, Satin?”

 

-

 

A new notification waits for him on his way home from work.

_Sansa in the North took a screenshot._

The internet does little to sway him either way on if that’s a good sign or a bad sign, so he screenshots the screenshot notification (gods, what has his life come to) and sends it to Arya. _Does she screenshot your stuff too?_ he asks.

He gets a slew of responses two stops before home:

_wtf she hasn’t even opened my last two snaps!!!_

_but yea good sign_

_did u send her a shirtless selfie?? nvm i dont wanna know_

He wants to pump his fist, but settles on celebrating the smallest of victories when he gets home. At least Ghost won’t judge him -- too harshly, that is. Jon Snow might not know much, but he now knows one thing: Sansa wanted to keep his dumb puppy-filter selfie, and that is a very good sign indeed.


End file.
